Could Russia Defeat a Ukrainian Insurgency? By Robert Beckhusen, War is Boring
There’s no doubt the Russian military has the means to invade mainland Ukraine. But whether it can hold conquered territory is another question—especially if Kiev puts up a fight.
That’s the conclusion of the Swedish Defense Research Agency, Stockholm’s government-funded military think tank.
The agency—known as FOI—doesn’t doubt that Russia can invade. But it does question whether Moscow has the ability to secure territory in mainland Ukraine, given the potential size of the area Russia would need to secure—and absent the natural defensive barriers of Crimea, which Moscow annexed in March…
Comments
I do not understand what everyone is all upset about.
Look most of us would agree with the saying 'History repeats itself.' If we had had a point in history where Germany was the strongest country in Europe. The European militaries were impotent to the point they could not take on a (as in 1) 3rd a world country even while that country was within range of their land bases and involved in its own civil war. A pro Communist government was in power in Russia. A European country was annexing parts of other countries to 'protect' its population that just happen to be on the wrong side of a boarder, while the winners of the previous world war did nothing, except reduce their militaries even more. While at the same time the US was adopting Socialist policies and drawing down its military post a worldwide economic hit. Simultaneously an Asian country was trying to build a Navy capable of fighting the US Navy, building Aircraft Carreers, and simultaneously claiming territory across Asia and the Pacific. With the annexing European country and the Asian country sharing a similar base ideology. Then and only then should anyone be worried and by default know the answer to the problem, and be able to predict the future.
Now IF, and only IF that had happened at some point in history, (ie 80 years ago)you would start to ask:
Where is the Neo-Danzig?
OR
When will China be Anschluss'ing Taiwan?
But since this has never happened in all of history, what is there to worry about?
(I hope you have all noticed a slightly sarcastic tone)
Carl:
As opposed to our short, successful campaigns? My point about Russian veterancy was more about the difficulty of beating them rather than the likelihood of them succeeding. They probably wont be prone to amateur mistakes in tactics, much as we are not. But that skill says nil about the potential of their strategy to deliver a strategic win (their hyper-violence has fed the rebellions in the Caucasus, even as they score tactical victory after victory). The Ukrainian forces, on the other hand, though trained by us, are sorely untested.
As for Russian hatreds. I grew up in the Soviet Union. Even into the 1990s the "Ukrainian" was a synonym for nazi sympathizer. One can be from the Ukraine, but you would be hard pressed to find one who claimed to be Ukrainian. That underlying sentiment is fertilizer to antiukrainian propaganda in Russia and in Ukraine. Mind you, unlike the massively diverse and mountainous Caucasus (also my home turf) the Ukraine is a massive 2D steppe with not much demographic complexity, even within the cities. Much easier to control. Remember that in 200 years no one outside of the Caucasus and Finland successfully rebelled against Russia.
Surprisingly, the Russians have resorted to UW supported by the imminent (but never materializing) conventional threat to simmer their way to a territorial meal, which troubles me deeply as it shows a degree of planning and command discipline we would scarcely grant them in a hypothetical scenario. These are veteran tactics executed by veteran troops. Don't be so eager to dismiss them; implied task - start developing a long term strategy that avoids a hot confrontation with Russia over the Ukraine while ensuring that we are never ambushed like this by anyone again. If the Ukraine can be saved intact in this strategy then kudos to the strategist. But we are way behind the power curve for that to be our main goal.
Sparapet:
They have been at it for a long time in those areas and they still can't shut it down. There approximately 10 times as many Ukrainians as there are people in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia. They did very bloodily shut down insurgencies in Ukraine and East Europe after the war. But that was Russia then, not Russia now. And in those places they suppressed after the war, they are not well liked. So they will face areas that have traditions of insurgency, populated by a very large number of people a large number of which really hate them.
Keep on rolling Vlad, it can only get easier from here.
Outlaw 09:
Folks here also seem to ignore the fact that Russia has been involved in a COIN fight for 20 decades straight. A fight that has been less than kind to the civilians of Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia. The Spetznaz boys are as veteran as any one we can throw out there and their Ukrainian peers have done little more than extra-rough domestic policing. The Russians have also taken on a project to professionalize their force.
As an aside, a brilliant and accomplished Russian man I very much respect once said that Russia will be always strong, but it will not be truly Great until the average Russian starts to believe that the average human life has intrinsic value. That same man is now in Russia and though he has opposed Putin for a decade he will support Russian foreign policy as a matter of civic duty.
As probably the only one writing here that has worked with a Russian BN and Russian Bde staffs (2012 and 2013) of one of their two peacekeeping Bdes that have had UN deployments----It was hard to get both staffs to understand that in peacekeeping operations the protection of civilians concept has the highest priority.
They still have the deep second nature to go straight to the use of force and call it peacekeeping.
It is that hammer mindset that still pervades since WW2 and regardless of how much they have transformed in the last six years it still is there.
Do not underestimate their counter UW abilities---was the USASF operations leader of a Ranger Company during the last big Reforger exercise in 1989 where I was given guidance by the 10th SFGA Commander to use Warsaw Pact counter UW TTPs that had been then just recently revealed to the West against NATO/US SOF.
Was able to defend using strictly WP counter UW tactics in a large scale maneuver area with critical infrastructure for over three weeks without losing a single object against four different NATO special ops teams plus several from USASF and Delta.
Warsaw Pact had it right in 1989 as they fully understood US UW ops and the Russian counter UW TTPs have not changed much from then to now.
Hoping for an insurgency if Russia invades, in view of the country's record in Chechnya, excuses the West of any moral obligations while, once again, millions of Ukrainians die at Russian hands. Something unsettling about this logic. Now that China has witnessed appeasement in Syria and Ukraine, will we use the same excuse when Peking goes after Taiwan?
Call me incorrigibly prone toward 'simplistification'. Carl is right. Outlaw-09 is right. My guess is that Eastern Ukraine is gone by the end of the month and all of Ukraine by the end of the year. Let's revise history just a detail or two. September 1939: the deteriorating peace has given way to blitzkrieg. Already, special forces of Germany -- the Eisengruppen -- are running amok, assassinating Jews as sport.
The valiant Poles put up a fight but are hopelessly outgunned. The United Kingdom and France have declared war with no action to back it. Desperate to preserve their homeland from the invaders, the Polish government appeals to the heavily listing League of Nations for support (peace-keepers). With millions of Poles living in the United States, pressures mount for the global 'arriviste' to do something for the old country.
U.S. President, Cactus Jack Garner, taking office after the untimely death of President Roosevelt, believes that European problems are European. Despite the pleading of a few internationalists, President Garner refuses to aid the Poles. He is determined not to get drawn into another European ground war. President Garner recognizes that Hitler is an aggressor. So he offers left over K-rations. No guns. No hits. No errors. Nobody left.
Nobody left to stop Hitler. Within two years, the Nazis have fulfilled most of Hitler's geopolitical aspirations of gaining Europe's bread-basket in Ukraine and Belarus; the oil fields of Bessarabia (Moldova); lebensraum in Poland; as well as, a western buffer in a humiliated, dismembered France. The offer of K-rations becomes a joke of history: the 'great biscuit blitz'.
President Garner is forever derided as the commander-in-chef and President butterball; he has mis-read axis intentions. Had Cactus Jack, Chamberlain et al. judged possible moves by the axis based upon capabilities rather than intentions and solemn pledges by Hitler, far fewer than 50+ million would likely have died, including grotesquely high numbers of jews, gypsies, slavs and chinese.
NOW LOOK AT RUSSIA. Our civilian leadership is seeking solemn promises from President Putin and refuses to push back on Russian capability well positioned to re-conquer a far weaker Ukraine, whose internal resistance has been undermined by looting of the expelled President Yanukovich. Russia is on the threshold of getting its needed bread-basket, locking up precious oil and gas stocks.
Ukraine needs help. And President Obama has offered up MREs. No defensive weapons, ammunition and supplies. No national guard training in Western Ukraine. No aerial protection of eastern Ukraine. Now that KIEV has requested peace-keepers and now that Russian leadership is counting on the WEST to prevent civil war, the hollowness of the current U.S. response is screaming in bold relief.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2014/04/13/russia-were-counting-o…
Seventy years from now, the mere offer of MREs in the face of an oncoming invasion will be remembered as a twisted joke. Such neologisms as 'Obamanation' will emerge. The call for peace-keepers, however, provides an indirect invitation to you all in the Special Forces. Two or three companies could go to the troubled cities of eastern Ukraine to train first responders in maintaining order in the urban centers.
The dispatch can be under the cover of "assuring safe-passage into the country of neutral peace-keepers". AGAIN, there are two keys here. First, this dispatch of Special Forces bridges the deterrent needed for sanctions and other measures to make themselves felt. Second, Russia has thrown a clear gauntlet. Russia does not think the WEST will act to "prevent civil war." Russia will then invade Ukraine to prevent the civil war the West is unwilling to prevent. The problem is that, once the civil war has been prevented, Russian 'peace-keepers' will not leave.
With any luck, the US/EU, various Ukranian leaders, and Russia will recreate a Line of Control like between India and Pakistan (Russia and NATO/US with nukes), coupled with an insurgency in Ukraine.
It takes a special kind of skill for Western and other elites to create such a fantastic strategic scenario. Good job Victoria Nuland and others, all the way around..../sarc.
/sarc because, incredibly, no one seems to be the least bit interested in the larger problems with the way in which this crisis has escalated and the utter nonsense bordering on propaganda in the Western and other media.